Thursday Feb 21, 2013

Much has changed in the world of corporate sustainability over the past year. Organizations have started to take action when it comes to implementing processes around sustainability, and as a result we are beginning to see profit from these efforts.

According to the latest edition of an annual survey of global executives by the MIT Sloan Management Review and the Boston Consulting Groupcorporate sustainability has become more embedded in business decisions and now defines company culture and corporate reputation. Significantly, the findings from the survey show:

Nearly 50% of companies have changed their business models as a result of sustainability opportunities - a 20% jump from last year

The portion of respondents reporting profit from sustainability went up 23%, to 37% in total

Two-thirds of respondents said that innovation advantage – identifying better solutions early – is the way to profit from sustainability

61% of companies that have changed their business model and have sustainability as a permanent fixture on their management agenda say they have added profit for sustainability

Improved brand reputation was the number one benefit to organizations in addressing sustainability (40%)

52% of organizations named customer preference for sustainable products as the number one reason that led to changes in their business model

62% of the respondents report that their company’s CEO has a strong commitment to sustainability

While all of these findings are extremely important and telling on the state of corporate sustainability, there are a few points to highlight.

Organizations noted that the number one challenge in the next two years is innovating to achieve competitive differentiation. Identifying sustainability-driven innovation early will be critical to success. An innovation advantage was the most common response (67%) among organizations when asked where they see profit from sustainability.

Additionally, we expect the percentage of companies that have changed their business models as a result of sustainability to keep climbing. At Oracle, we understand the importance of ensuring there is an integrated approach to sustainability at the core of all business activities. Put simply, it is ineffective to treat sustainability as a separate functional area.

We are focused on delivering solutions that allow our customers to embed sustainability throughout their organizations and to achieve their sustainability initiatives so they too can be part of this exciting strategic opportunity.

Wednesday Feb 20, 2013

Health Authority – Abu Dhabi (HAAD) is the regulatory body charged with ensuring excellence in community healthcare in the emirate. HAAD needed to deploy a reliable and secure infrastructure to facilitate world-class healthcare e-services that could scale to serve millions of citizens across the emirates. The health authority deployed the Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 to standardize processes and improve efficiency. It reduced customer service transaction workload by 20%, automated the requisition cycle with paperless processes, accelerated processing, on average, fivefold and cut the monthly financial closing process from 10 days to 3 days. By rolling out self-service capabilities, the organization saves 800 work-hours and 25,000 sheets of paper, annually. By moving to a paperless system and reducing their environmental impact, HAAD was selected as one of the winners of the 2012 Oracle Excellence Award: Eco-Enterprise Innovation. With the help of Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, HAAD increased the performance of its front-office processes, driven by third-party applications that are uploaded into the data warehouse every night, by 80%, on average, and facilitated strategic decision-making through in-depth analysis capabilities. Read more about Health Authority – Abu Dhabi (HAAD).

Tuesday Feb 19, 2013

In the recently released 2012 Corporate Citizenship Report we are proud to highlight our efforts to minimize Oracle's environmental impact and the work we do to help our customers do the same. The sustainability portion of this report addresses how Oracle technology helps companies better execute and measure their own sustainability initiatives.Oracle provides sustainability solutions that can be easily integrated with our customers' core business activities. These solutions cover an unmatched breadth and depth of capability, and we are continuing to invest and innovate.

·Oracle's energy efficient data centers have been recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers. Many Oracle products are used within our data centers.

·Oracle’s technology is built on open and public industry standards, and Oracle engineers drive innovation by participating in 119 standards-setting organizations. Open interfaces, documented specifications, and standards-based development tools lower IT costs, while providing increased choice, interoperability, and flexibility.

The technology industry is critical to global progress and prosperity. We are committed to using our resources to protect the environment, meet regulatory compliance requirements, and employ socially responsible business practices in our operations.